Let's judge the legitimacy of five NFL players who...
Key takeaways
- It's a truism, but it's a valuable one in the NFL.
- As such, it is a challenge to stand in one moment of time and say with certainty which players will continue to improve or continue to decline.
- I circled five players who suddenly broke out in 2025 and five players whose performance fell off a cliff out of nowhere to ask one simple question: Was it a blip or a trend?
Why this matters: a sports story that could shift standings, legacies, or fan conversations.
It's a truism, but it's a valuable one in the NFL. Teams don't always get better incrementally. If they did, the 4-13 Patriots wouldn't have become the 14-3 Patriots in one short offseason. NFL players don't get better incrementally, either. And even when they improve one season, they are not guaranteed to improve again the next year.
As such, it is a challenge to stand in one moment of time and say with certainty which players will continue to improve or continue to decline. The 2025 season was rife with risers and fallers. Later, we might call those same players one-hit wonders or flashes in the pan. But we might also call them bona fide stars and faces of the league. We just won't know until we get there.
But from here, we can at least predict. I circled five players who suddenly broke out in 2025 and five players whose performance fell off a cliff out of nowhere to ask one simple question: Was it a blip or a trend? Is this player's current arc destined to continue in 2026, or will his trajectory suddenly regress back to previous years -- for better or worse -- in the upcoming NFL season?